A Presumption of Death (37 page)

Authors: Dorothy L. Sayers,Jill Paton Walsh

Tags: #Mystery & Detective, #Fiction

BOOK: A Presumption of Death

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Would you believe, Cornelia, that I have joined the Auxiliary Fire Service myself, and I take my turn standing on the church tower with a tin hat on? Only it’s so far from the village for people to walk here at night, and we are so close by. The whole thing was arranged that way, of course, at the whim of an eighteenth-century Duke, who wanted his villagers at a respectful distance, and the church handy on a wet Sunday, but the result is I think I should take my turn. Franklin keeps running up and down the tower steps with blankets and Thermos flasks for me, tut-tutting like mad, silly woman. But as I told her, I have Norman blood.

We are all so heartened at what you tell us about all the organisations in your great country campaigning to persuade the President to come to our aid. Women’s organisations, too; but then you and I both know, dear, that women often see what battle will have to be fought while the men are still marching around the parade ground. Peter doesn’t think that we could possibly win without you; the most we might manage will be to hang on until you get here; to avoid being engulfed ourselves, so that American aid will be possible. It doesn’t seem likely that even the United States could invade Europe across three thousand miles of ocean. So you see, dear, the old country will come in handy as an airfield, and jumping-off base, if only we can hold out long enough. But there will be a terrible battle now that the enemy have all the coastal areas across the Channel, and England is in range for all their fighters and bombers. So we hope it won’t take too long for your gallant band of interventionists to succeed, and shut up Lindbergh and people like him who are telling you to stay at home and not get involved. Such an odd line of thinking for a public hero, I think, although perhaps the poor man was unhinged by having his baby kidnapped in that horrible manner.

Talking of babies, we have a visit in prospect next weekend from all the grandchildren at Talboys, and I am cutting up a lovely old lace counterpane to make a wedding veil for a friend of Harriet’s. It’s eighteenth century – the counterpane, that is – but be bothered to that, there is a good deal of fun to be had in make do and mend! I really don’t think we appreciated things half so much when we could just go out and buy them. And Franklin tells me that
Gone with the Wind
has reached Duke’s Denver, and will be showing in the little local cinema next week, which will give us all a treat and take us out of ourselves. So you see, we are keeping cheerful, and getting on with things as best we can. Don’t worry about us, Cornelia, the best thing you can do for us is go and throw eggs at your pacifists!

My best love to you and Lambert, and, of course, to John and Margaret and Junior.

Your affectionate old friend,

Honoria Denver

PS: Can your food parcel really include home-made
jelly
? However did you wrap it up?

Author’s Note

From November 1939 to January 1940 Dorothy L. Sayers made a series of contributions to the
Spectator
magazine, consisting of mock letters to and from various members of the Wimsey family, about war-time conditions like blackout, evacuation, rationing, and the need for the public to take personal responsibility: ‘They must not continually ask for leadership – they must lead themselves.’

These contributions, usually now referred to as ‘The Wimsey Papers’ in effect lay out the characters in the crime novels like pieces on a chess board during the opening moves of a game. They tell us where everyone was. Lord Peter was somewhere abroad, on a secret mission under the direction of the Foreign Office; Bunter was with him; Harriet had taken her own children and those of her sister-in-law to the country, the loathed Helen, Duchess of Denver had joined the Ministry of Instruction and Morale, etc. etc.

The Wimsey Papers are almost, but not quite, the latest information that Dorothy L Sayers provided about her characters. There is also a short story called ‘Talboys’, contained in the volume ‘Striding Folly’ which shows Peter and Harriet and their children living in their country farmhouse peacefully together, and which must refer to 1942.

The Wimsey Papers are not fiction, and were not intended to be read in a continuous chunk. Some of them are about details of war-time history that would now require extensive footnotes in explication. But they do afford an authoritative foothold for an account of the Wimsey family in 1940. I have opened this novel with a selection from them, and incorporated insights and information from them in the narrative where I could.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Mr Bruce Hunter and the trustees of Anthony Fleming for entrusting to me the continuation of the lives of Lord Peter, Harriet Vane, and their family and friends.

I gratefully acknowledge the indispensable help of Dr Barbara Reynolds, president of the Dorothy L. Sayers Society; the friendly assistance of Mr Christopher Dean, chairman of that society; and of Mr P.J.V. Elliot of the Royal Air Force Museum, Hendon. I thank Mr Christopher Reeves and Mr John Lambert for finding for me a copy of
Norwegian Patrol
by Gron Edwards; Mr John Turner and Mr John Romain for ensuring that I could understand a pilot’s-eye view of a Spitfire; Mr Christopher Tanous, for arranging a visit to Chicksands; Mr Malcolm Bishop and Ms Edna Robertson for information about dentistry; and Mr Peter Welton, master butcher with a long memory; Ms Carolyn Caughey, and Ms Hope Dellon for their capable editorial advice, and help received as always and in everything from John Rowe Townsend.

I have been greatly helped and encouraged along the way by the members of the Harriet Vane internet chat-group.

Finally I would like to thank my parents and grandparents, long after the event, who in my tender years protected me from the times I was living in, and gave me a happy and insouciant early childhood. Reading for this book has engendered in me an immense respect for the courage and sang-froid of those who had to live through those years with adult apprehension of death and danger and adult understanding of what was at stake.

Permissions

Lines from
Tommy
by Rudyard Kipling on page 20 are quoted by kind permission of A.P. Watt Ltd on behalf of the National Trust for Places of Historical Interest or Natural Beauty.

Song lines on pages 22/3 quoted by kind permission of Johnny Greenbay & the Dancehall Flourishers.

Extract from
The Diaries of Virginia Woolf
on page 61 published by Hogarth Press. Used by permission of the executors of the Virginia Woolf Estate and the Random House Group Ltd.

Lines from ‘Invitation au Festin’ by Aelfrida Tillyard on page 83 from
The Garden and the Fire
, published 1916 by Heffer, Cambridge.

Extract from
The Tale of Pigling Bland
by Beatrix Potter on page 199, Copyright © Frederick Warne & Co., 1913. Reproduced by permission of Frederick Warne & Co.

Poem XL from
A Shropshire Lad
on page 299 by permission of the Society of Authors as the literary representatives of the estate of A.E. Housman.

Lines attributed to Alan Brinklow on page 306 are those of an unknown Second World War soldier, recorded by Mr Jack Miles.

Apologies are offered to copyright holders whom it has not been possible to trace.

About the Author

Jill Paton Walsh
, born in 1937, is the author of five novels for adults: the fourth of these,
Knowledge of Angels
, was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. Before writing for adults she made a career as a writer of children’s books and has won many literary prizes. In addition she is the author of two crime novels:
The Wyndham Case
and
A Piece of Justice
, which was shortlisted for the Crime Writers’ Association Gold Dagger Award. These novels feature Imogen Quy, the college nurse at St Agatha’s College, Cambridge, as her heroine.

Dorothy L Sayers
, was born in Oxford in 1893, and was both a classical scholar and a graduate in modern languages. As well as her popular Lord Peter Wimsey series, she wrote several religious plays, but considered her translations of Dante’s Divina Commedia to be her best work. She died in 1957.

Table of Contents

A Presumption of Death

Dedication

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight